


Indignity

by Saucery



Series: Hartwin Stories [18]
Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Angst, Aristocracy, Bathing/Washing, Bathtubs, Blue Balls, But Not For Very Long!, Class Differences, Class Issues, Cross-Generation Relationship, Denial of Feelings, Drama, Eventual Smut, Happy Ending, Historical Inaccuracy, Including Ableism, Internalized Homophobia, Intimacy, Jealousy, Lust, M/M, Master/Servant, Mutual Pining, Nobility, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Older Woman/Younger Man, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Possessive Behavior, Power Dynamics, Power Imbalance, Romance, Secret Relationship, Secrets, Seduction, Sensuality, Service, Service Kink, Service Submission, Service Top, Sexual Fantasy, Sexual Frustration, Sexual Tension, Shaving, Social Commentary, Topping from the Bottom, Valeting, Victorian Attitudes, Wealth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2015-08-18
Packaged: 2018-04-15 07:50:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4598718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saucery/pseuds/Saucery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry is the best valet, except for how he wants to fuck his master senseless. Eggsy is the worst master, except for how he gives Harry exactly what he wants.</p><p>Or, a birthday gift for <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/roxlins/pseuds/roxlins">roxlins</a>, who wanted more of Harry being a service top, so I decided to give her a very literal service top. As in, a top whose very profession is service.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Indignity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [roxlins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roxlins/gifts).



> Such inaccurate. Very history.

* * *

 

Harry was below-stairs, ironing _The Times_ into crisp, wrinkle-free perfection, when the little brass bell above the fireplace rang.

“Mary,” he said to a maid scurrying past, “kindly take Lady Unwin’s newspaper to her, will you? The young master is summoning me.”

Mary sniffed, setting her basket of laundry down. “He’s always summoning you. Poor you, being Master Eggsy’s valet.”

Harry inclined his head in tactful non-agreement, as would be expected of a faithful, uncomplaining servant. It would not do to reveal how very much he enjoyed his service, and how precious his master was to him.

Refolding _The Times_ , he handed it to Mary, and proceeded up the stairs and into the master’s wing at an efficient but dignified pace. A gentleman’s gentleman did not hurry. It was unseemly.

He arrived at Master Eggsy’s bedroom and knocked before opening the door, only to find Eggsy perched on the edge of his bed, in his nightshirt, its hem rucked up to mid-thigh. Harry dropped his gaze, for the sake of his master’s modesty, although he would fain let it linger on that lithe, lovely form, on the messy morning hair and soft, sleep-flushed mouth.

“Harry,” Master Eggsy said, voice rough with sleep. “You took _ages_. I’m to attend brunch at that confounded Hesketh’s estate, or have you forgotten?”

“I have not, sir,” Harry said, tying the curtains he had untied last night, letting in the light. “Did you rest well?”

Eggsy yawned. “As well as can be expected after a night of revelry at Roxy’s.”

“Ah,” said Harry, keeping his disapproval out of the word.

“There you go again,” Eggsy said, “moralizing Roxy’s excellent establishment for no justifiable reason.”

So Eggsy was aware of what lay behind the studied evenness of Harry’s tone. It was… flattering, that a man of higher rank should be so educated as to the inner workings of a lower. “Mademoiselle Morton is an exemplary hostess, but the… patrons… that frequent her parlor are less than stellar. Their penchant for drinking and gambling to the detriment of intelligent and informed intercourse is an unfortunate habit, and one that Mademoiselle Morton encourages, to the detriment of her reputation.”

“But to the betterment of her pocket.” Eggsy snorted. “They spend more when they’re drunk. It’s that simple.”

“Lord Jamal is on the verge of squandering his entire inheritance.”

“And why are you so concerned about Jamal?” Eggsy said, irritatedly. “Am I not your master?”

“Of course you are, sir. My apologies.”

Eggsy harrumphed. “Enough of your apologies. Shave me.”

Harry fetched his master’s shaving kit, with a shallow saucer of warm water, the blade that Harry religiously whetted to the sharpness of a weapon, and the herb-infused, luxurious cream made by the local apothecary. He began to shave Eggsy, with steady scrapes of the blade, tracing its path with his fingertips to check that the skin was smooth.

This activity had been meditative, with his previous masters, but with Eggsy, it was alarmingly… titillating, and Harry disciplined his breaths so that they may not hasten, just as he disciplined his eyes so that they may not linger upon Eggsy’s bared, arched throat, or upon that fine-boned jaw, strangely vulnerable in Harry’s broader, older grip.

Eggsy’s eyelashes fluttered with every pass, and his lips parted.

Harry withdrew, rinsing the blade, before returning it to Eggsy’s jugular, and Eggsy shivered.

“You’re so good at this,” Eggsy murmured. “You make it feel…”

_Feel?_ Harry would have asked, except that it was not his place to ask, to demand, to _take_ —

He turned aside, putting the kit away to be tidied later, and hoped he was not overly hoarse when he said, “It is over, sir. Shall I draw your bath?”

“Hm?” Eggsy leaned back on his elbows, the collar of his nightshirt gaping open. “Go ahead. I can’t show up at Hesketh’s esteemed house smelling like a sweaty kerchief.”

Eggsy smelled nothing like a sweaty kerchief. Thanks to his youth, there was a freshness even to his newly woken body, a scent that resembled dewy grass or the sweetness of forest moss. In Harry’s most secret, most fevered dreams, he pressed his nose to the sources of that scent, followed it to where it thickened, at the groin and under the arms, tasting that mild, elusive musk with delicate laps of his tongue, until Eggsy squirmed.

But those dreams were unforgivable, and Harry had no intention of allowing his master to ever guess at their nature, let alone at their existence. So he drew the bath, as ordered, and unlaced Eggsy’s nightshirt with steady fingers, exposing Eggsy’s pearlesque body as if it were not the jewel it was, as if its subtle glow in the faint morning light did not invite caresses.

Harry could not caress it. He did not deserve to. _No-one_ deserved—

No. He was being absurd. A lady of standing would deserve Eggsy. A lady of standing would _have_ Eggsy, and Harry’s only role in that socially-sanctioned courtship would be to ferry flowery billets-doux between Master Eggsy and his paramour.

Harry would have to make his peace with that. It was not as though he could make war with it, or as though he could present himself as a passable suitor, even a competitor, when he was both an invert and a valet. To imagine otherwise would be to permit himself a possessiveness that was both unprofessional and inappropriate. And Harry was, if nothing else, a consummate professional.

Jeremy the boiler-boy brought up a laundered towel and two large copper buckets—barrels, almost—brimming with steaming water, and Harry unburdened him of them at the door, blocking Master Eggsy’s nudity from view.

He filled the golden, claw-footed tub that he had pulled out of its alcove, and allowed the steam to veil Eggsy from his own view, for the few crucial moments it took for Harry to compose himself, so that he was expressionless when he assisted Eggsy into the tub, and when Eggsy sighed, a long, exquisite sigh that curled like a note of music in Harry’s ear.

Eggsy relaxed against the rim of the tub and shut his eyelids, and Harry kneeled, on aging knees that protested the treatment, as he ran the washcloth up his master’s firmer, younger limbs. Eggsy spread his legs, innocently, as if ignorant of the obscenity of the gesture, and when Harry hesitated in washing his thighs, Eggsy made a vague, drowsy, interrogative noise and closed his hand over Harry’s, urging it upward.

Harry froze.

“Harry…?” Eggsy queried, low and intimate, and Harry was sure for a mad, solitary instant that his master _knew_ what he was doing to Harry, and that he was as dedicated to making Harry lose his sanity as Harry was dedicated to preserving it.

“Yes, sir?” Harry replied, but the question emerged—odd, tight, tangled, almost _angry_. Not servile, at all.

“You seem distracted, today.”

“My apologies.” There. That was better. Blander.

“A second apology! What grave sins have you committed, Harry, to abase yourself so?”

_My grave sins are the abasements I subject you to, in the murky caverns of my mind._ Harry stood quickly, wringing the soapy washcloth and hanging it on its hook, before retrieving the towel and holding it up for his master to step into.

Which Eggsy did, uncertainly, climbing out of the tub. “Harry?”

“We shall be delayed, Master Eggsy, if we tarry unduly.”

“Oh, now you have me curious. You aren’t tumbling that maid, are you?”

Harry blinked, nonplussed. “What maid?”

“Mary. I espied you talking to her. Yesterday. And the week before that.”

Why would Harry’s own master spy on him? Or remark on the company he kept? “I… do not foster such disreputable associations, sir.”

“Boring,” Eggsy complained, but there was a small smile hovering about his mouth. About his delectable, distracting mouth. “What associations, if any, would you deem reputable?”

“Those of the heart, founded on conviction and devotion.”

“You are as solemn as a pastor, and as virtuous.” Eggsy slumped within the towel Harry enveloped him in. “How fortunate the recipient of your devotion must be.”

Was Eggsy jesting? Or was he truly so—

Not dense, no. Master Eggsy was gifted with an extraordinary intelligence. But obtuse? Aye, perhaps he was obtuse. To Harry’s endless relief.

“Indeed, sir,” Harry said, dryly, leaving his master dripping adorably on the carpet as Harry walked to the armoire and selected the peacock coat, the violet cravat and the cream-frilled shirt. “Indeed.”

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Like my writing? Want updates and sneak previews? Follow me on [Tumblr](http://saucefactory.tumblr.com/)!


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